Farmers Protest in India 2020

The agriculture sector is one of the main producing sectors in India when the GDP data came only the agriculture sector was the only sector which has positive GDP. Now, the government has introduced 3 new bills for changing some rules in the agriculture sector. But the farmers are against these bills and from many days farmers are protesting for that. Many farmers protesting against these bills on tractors, that is why this protest is also called a Tractor protest.

What needed to introduce new bills?

Before these 3 bills, there was APMC( Agricultural Produce & Livestock Market Committee ) act which was established early in the 1960s according to this act farmer used to sell their yield to the middlemen who has govt. approval licenses and then middlemen used to sell these yields to institutional buyers. The government has declared minimum prices for crops that middlemen can not buy crops below this rate called MSP(Minimum Support Price).

APMC's drawback is that the middlemen used to buy yields at less price from the farmer and sell them at a very high price to buyers. Due to this farmers are not getting an actual price for their crops. That is why the govt. has introduced 3 new bills.

What are these bills?

Bill 1 The  Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce Bill 2020

This bill allows farmers to sell their crops directly to buyers without selling them to middlemen at a price to be agreed between them both. Now farmers can sell their crops to buyers directly or by middlemen both.

Bill 2 The Farmer Agreement on price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020

This bill will allow farmers to enter into an agreement with agri-firms, exports, or large buyers to produce a crop for a pre-aged price. 

Bill 3 The Essential Commodities Bill 2020

This bill allows economic agents to store food articles freely without the fear of being prosecuted for hoarding.

Why People are protesting?

• 85% of farmers do not have more than 2 hectares of land so it will be very difficult for them to negotiate directly with large-scale buyers.

• Farmers are thinking that alternate Private 'mandi' will lead to end APMC 'mandi' reason for this is there is no tax in private 'mandi' which will cause buyers or traders to buy from private 'mandi' so farmers have to also sell their crops in private 'mandi'.

• Millions of workers work in APMC they will face many problems if AMPC will shut down.

• Some state governments are against this because there is no tax in private 'mandi' the tax which was used to use in-state development.

• Farmers want MSP in private mandi too.

• Unlimited stocking can lead to artificial price fluctuations and low prices for farmers after harvest.

How the Bills passed?

On 20th September 2020, Sunday 'Rajya Sabha' passed these bills by voice vote. In this method, the speaker asks MPs(Member of Parliament) that if you agree on this bill say "AYE" and if you do not agree with this say "NO" and the listener will decide which voice is loud and louder voice decision will be taken. There is also a provision that if any of the MP is not agree on the final decision so he can cancel the voice vote and then the decision will be taken by division voting method and but the deputy of chairman said that the division of votes cannot happen until the members were not one seat they also stopped broadcasting on television. Those MPs who do not support them they started violating the tore a book and broke many mics.

Final conclusion

Many people are against these bills mostly farmers because they think due to these new laws APMC will shut down and they have to then sell their crops to private 'mandi' but why are they want to sell to their crops in APMC to middlemen who give them very low price the reason is simple because in APMC there is a provision of MSP due to this at any critical situation farmers have a minimum price at which they can sell their crops but in private 'mandi', there is no MSP and they have unlimited stock of any crop so they can make a situation for farmers to sell them at whatever price buyers want. In India farmers are uneducated and they are not eligible to deal with other buyers or traders so middlemen will shift from APMC to private 'mandi' nothing will change only farmers will face problems.

            The way of passing these bills in 'Rajya Sabha' was not correct also they stopped the broadcast they suspended the 8 MPs who were not in support with and had shown the violence and they did not do the division vote if they want they could adjourn the meeting then they can do division voting but they did not do that and those who got suspended and those who are not in favor of these bills started protesting against 'Rajya Sabha'. This open market program also started in Bihar and now Bihar's farmers also facing the same problem which now farmers are protesting for.

By 

Shahnawaz Hussain